This weekend was our monthly game day. We held it at my in-laws outbuilding that they have, which is hugely roomy, with tons of outside for kids to run around in. The weather was a bit colder then we had expected, which kind of sucked, but we soldiered through, threw some heaters out there and got our game on.Here is what I played:

2010-04-16 Friday night hanging out with the wife's familyFarkelBohnanzaCranium

It was a good weekend. The only downside being my mother didn't manage to get home in time for playing our usual Le Havre match. (And I wanted to try le grand harneau)

Friday evening:A big group of friends came to my house, so we played six rounds of Zendo and one of Jungle Speed. When most people had left I played Twin Win with two friends twice, and 3 plays of Pentago.SaturdaySantorini with my gf, and we baptized her sister on Brass: Lancashire (another player converted! She wants to play it again this thursday)

"I will take love wherever I find it, and offer it to everyone who will take it. Seek knowledge from those wiser, and teach those who wish to learn." -Duane Allman

and my wife and son and I played it on Sunday. Zach won, it was a fun little push your luck game.

Also on Sunday, I ran out to Five Below, hoping to find Lord of the Rings: The Duel for $1.00 - I found it and bought it and Zach and I played it. Not a bad little game, especially for a buck! I'm bringing it into work today as a lunch break game.

If you can't walk, crawl. If you can't crawl..... well, you know the rest.

Any game is the right game with the right crowd.

Got in a five player game of this that lasted 7 hours, mostly due to a friend that was recovering from a vasectomy who moved very gingerly and frequently had to get up to change out frozen bags of peas.

1) Space Alert X 3: It was the four of us against the brutalities of the horrible aliens from outer space. After we finished the easy tutorial we set down for the real thing. It wasn't an easy site. The terrible aliens butcherred us as one of the four kept loading energy and shooting to the wrong direction... Although we lost we still wanted to try another, even harder, game with internal threats. We were so focused on killing the internal threats that we forgot to deal with the external threats...The final score was Aliens 2: Humans 1.2) Dominion. We played a 3er together with the seaside expansion. I won with 45 VPs after building a Festival-Lighthouse-Library deck.

The gaming group got together and managed to get a pair of games to the table.

The first was Albion, which had been sitting on the stack for a couple of weeks. A fairly straight forward game of area control/worker placement. Nothing new under the sun, but not a bad game. It was the first game of this for all of us, which is the only way that I was able to manage a victory. Nice bits, but nothing overly exciting. I see that Funagain has this on sale rather cheap. Might have to get this one.

The second game was a 4-player game of Stronghold. Both Blake and Rich had played before (the 2-player game) so they each took a side and one too Bill and the other myself under their wing. Alas, the castle fell in a mere 4 turns to the merciless orcs and trolls (not too many goblins were seen). I like this game, but it really is a 2-player and not a 4 player experience. Looking forward to the reprint so that I can get my hands on this one.

Sunday was our regular 18xx day and we played a four hander of 1825 Unit 1 with advanced trains, ferries and some other variants. A good game dispite my poor portfolio choices and allowing my only company to get boxed in (I was last). We'd hoped to get to phase 4 but the bank ran out of money so next time the plan is to add more cash and a few minors as well.

Not 100% sure it's a game for me. It has some good if not great ideas but it just didn't feel like an East Front game to me, and I felt a little too abstract and very chess like at times (unit placement could be very critical). However, to make an East Front game fit into such a small and very playable package, compromises have had to be made between realism and playability.

I still may buy the GMT reprint as I appreciate how clever the game is

My son got this for his 9th birthday last week. I knew he'd like it, but really didn't expect the degree of enthusiasm that he's shown.

On Saturday, he played the Allies while my husband was the Axis. He was bummed because he lost (although my husband said he did well figuring out how to play Russia), but wasn't deterred.

Sunday was my turn to join in. I've never played A&A before. I played the Allies, our son was Germany, and my husband played Japan (with our younger daughter helping out every now & then). He was extra-seriously bummed that a) Germany was getting beat and b) we weren't able to complete the game. He refused to give up, however, and at first balked when we had to clear the table for supper--so my husband pulled out our digital camera so we can pick up where we left off.

I picked this game up on a whim for only $7.48 (it was on clearance at Target). Money well spent!

Played a 3-player scenario (Two Front War, from the 2.0 rulebook) of Victory: The Blocks of War on Friday night. I played the middle force, which was twice as powerful initially as either of the two other forces, but only has 1/2 the production. I made the mistake of letting one of my opponents just build up, hoping to instead crush the other...it didn't work out, and I had only conquered 2 PP worth of cities before I got steamrolled. But it was still fun, and we intend to try the scenario again sometime this week. After the game I looked over the maps and I think I may have a strategy that will enable my high-water mark to be a little, er, higher before I'm taken down.

On Saturday, we had 7 people at game night. First up was Saboteur, a title I'd traded for a few months ago. I was pretty fun, with lots of laughs and "huh?" moments as we tried to figure out who was who. My only gripe is that the saboteurs really have to tip their hand at some point, and then it devolves into whoever has the most attack cards. I wish there were a way for the saboteurs to stay hidden till the very end. Maybe if we play it more, we'll get more subtle. I lost miserably, scoring zero (!) gold. We played 3 rounds, and the winner (my devious wife!) had 7 nuggets. Then there were 3 people tied at 5, one person at 4, and one other hapless dwarf with a goose egg, along with me. Everyone enjoyed it and it will surely get more play time.

Next we tried Dixit. I had played this once, and really liked it, so when it came back in print, I snagged it and the expansion (which I have not yet opened). Everyone had a decent time, though the one guy that was an art major really enjoyed himself. I ended up winning with 20 points, partially making up for my disastrous last-place finish at Saboteur. I've already had two requests to play this again, so that's promising.

Most folks cleared out at this point, leaving me, my wife, and one other player. We played three quick games of Dominion (base game), starting with Big Money and replacing all kingdom cards not purchased for each of the succeeding games. I won handily the first game with 56 points, 2nd and 3rd had 37 and 36. Then my wife won twice, once 53-38-33, then a really close match of 43-42-42. By then it was just after midnight (past my bedtime!) so we called it a night.

Played a great two player game of Stone Age that ended in a tiebreaker. I think since we're relatively new to the game, we didn't adequately block, making the tiebreaker somewhat more likely, but this is a fun game.

Also got in a bunch of San Juan, which I think is my current favorite quick game, and some Ra Dice.

On Friday night after successfully defending my thesis, I had game night and played: Frank's Zoo, Himalaya, Lord of the Rings, Race for the GalaxyThurn and Taxis.

Started off with a victory in RftG, second place in Himalaya, a shared victory in LotR and runaway victories in T and T and Frank's Zoo. I did try to get Treasures & Traps on the table twice, but since I really only like to play with 2 and someone else always seemed to show up right before liftoff, we would switch and play something else. I did drink too much, but hey I was celebrating a big monkey off my back. All in all a great night.

Played this Sunday with my bf. It had been awhile since we played, so the final turn seemed to come too quick. We were going to try for a game of Ticket to Ride: Märklin, but it ended up being too late.

Saturday I was able to try Here I stand for the first time. For those unfamiliar, Here I Stand is a fairly massive card-driven wargame for 2-6 players. Probably the most admired elements are the asymmetrical powers and the diplomacy phase.

We started the game with the normal 4-player setup: England/Protestant, Hapsburgs/Papacy, France (me), and the Ottomans. The Ottoman player had to leave about 4 hours in, so I took over that role. We eventually ran into time constraints (the store was closing) so we had to declare France the winner on points before concluding the game. I learned a lot and I'm really looking forward to trying this with the full complement of six players at some point.

Sunday I played a number of games with the kids: My oldest son (13) found my Warhammer 40k CCG starter decks while combing through the office for something, so we tried that out. It's pretty good for a CCG that did not stay in print for long. He's also been studying WWII in school, so he wanted to play Memoir '44.

Son, middle (10), was feeling under the weather so we mainly watched shows. But son, youngest (5) wanted to play, so got in games of Blokus and Ingenious.

Another gaming day at the Wilson's for us. While trying to decide what to play first, I pulled out Marrakech so Mike, Andy, Mark and Andrea played this quick carpet laying game. Yes, you lay actual little cloth carpets instead of cardboard tiles, and you can cover other players carpets, and have Assam, the market owner, land on your carpet chains, because that player then has to pay you for number of carpets in that chain. You count money and your visible carpets in the market to determine the winner. Quick and fun. Plays in about 15 minutes. Mark won this one.

Next, we split into 2 groups. Becca, Andrea, Leah, and I played 2 games of A la Carte. I managed to win 1, and Andrea won the other game. Just as fun as last weekend.

The other group of Mark, AndY and Scott, played a game of Thunderstone. Mark won this, and I heard him comment that he wasn't sure about this one yet. Seems their mix of village cards weren't the greatest.

Took a little break while Mark watched the Sioux City bandits play arena football on the internet. Then Becca, Mark, Mike, and I broke out Fresco. Mike had played 3 games of this, and had won all 3, so his record was on the line. He managed to pull out a win, but just barely beat Mark. This is a colorful, fun game. You get to buy paints, mix them into different colors, and restore Fresco tiles to earn victory points. I think everyone enjoyed this.

Our last game of the night was Dominion with Intrigue, Seaside, and the original all together. We had an interesting mix of cards--the black market was one. But the sea hag made everyone end up with a lot of curse cards, and scores were dismallly low--I ended up with 6, and Mark won with 12!

Another good day of gaming, and we are all looking forward to attending the MAGEcon next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City, Nebraska. So if anyone reads this, and lives in the area, come on out and join in the gaming fun.

I got in another game of Ticket to Ride with my friends this weekend. They really enjoy this game and are starting to get the hang of it. Scoring was a bit more even and intense this game. I was able to win by completing 5 destination tickets.

My second game was Thunderstone.Wow, this game exceeds Dominion in so many ways for me. The choice of having two different areas in which to use your cards just adds the extra element that make this game shine. I will give a better review when I have more games under my belt.

The spouse and I had three people over on Friday. We started with a game of Citadels that I lost handily, then played Endeavor, which I also came in dead last. The next day my baby mama and I tried Endeavor with the "official" 2-player variant and won that game.

I had only played the game once but loved it, so I requested it as a birthday gift and the lady of the house bought it for my birthday last January. Unfortunately, however, it wasn't getting played - until this past weekend. I was very happy to get Endeavor on the table, and twice at that!